Cashman Law Firm, PLLC – Patent Attorney in Houston, TX
Patent attorneys are needed to secure and protect business ideas and inventions from those who copy. This article introduces Rob Cashman, patent attorney and owner of the Cashman Law Firm, PLLC. Our firm can be found by searching for “Patent Attorney Houston TX.”
Rob is a patent attorney, and has been registered as such with the US Patent & Trademark Office (Reg. No. 60,246) for ten years. He focuses each patent he drafts to proactively protect the inventor against a company (local or offshore) who will later infringe the patent.
If you have any questions about how we can be of service to you, please feel free to contact us at 713-364-3476, or to book an appointment to speak to us about your invention, click the button below. If you need to find us again, you may do so by searching “Patent Attorney Houston TX” in Google Search.
WHAT IS CASHMAN IP™?
CASHMAN IP™, the intellectual property branch of the Cashman Law Firm™ provides nationwide legal representation for inventors. Patent your invention with a patent attorney, and stop companies from stealing your idea.
CASHMAN IP™ was founded upon the premise that the timeline of a patent should not end upon its issuance, but it should necessarily contemplate that eventually someone will infringe your patent, and thus the aspects of protecting your invention through careful drafting of claims and anticipation of licensing opportunities and enforcement of patent rights should be built into the body of your patent from DAY ONE.
We can be found by searching for “CashmanIP,” or “Patent Attorney Houston TX” in Google.
To schedule a FREE, NO OBLIGATION appointment with a CASHMAN IP™ patent attorney or to get started right away and have us begin working on your invention, click the “booknow” button below.
HOW PATENT ATTORNEYS OFTEN ACCIDENTALLY DEVALUE PATENTS
Patent attorneys (my peers) are often taught that a patent need only describe what the invention is, so that the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) would be able to distinguish one invention from the pool of patents and publications in existence. It is too easy to overly narrow patent claims so that the application issues on the first try. We believe this is a formula for an unenforceable patent. A good patent is one which has a rich prosecution history, often with many rounds of rejections from the patent examiner, where the patent attorney successfully argues the broad scope of the invention and earns the examiner’s recognition as being a distinct invention.
CLAIMS WHICH ARE TOO BROAD ARE OFTEN UNENFORCEABLE IN A PATENT LITIGATION LAWSUIT
On the other extreme, patent attorneys often draft the claims — the most important and enforceable part of the patent — in a way that they are so over-sweeping and overly broad that they become unclear to third parties (who eventually include judges and juries evaluating the patent down the road) what exactly the invention is.
CLAIMS WHICH ARE TOO NARROW OFTEN MISS THE ACTUAL INVENTION IN FAVOR OF PROTECTING SOME COMPONENT OF IT
Both of these extremes — having a patent with overly-narrow claims, and having a patent with overly broad claims — are dangerous to the validity of a patent.
CLAIMS WHICH CLAIM ONLY ONE EMBODIMENT LOSE IN A PATENT LITIGATION CASE TO A COMPANY WHO PRACTICED AN UNDISCLOSED EMBODIMENT OF THAT INVENTION
A third pitfall occurs when the patent claims are written too-specifically in that only one embodiment of the invention is claimed, and the broad concept of the invention is excluded. This again leaves the inventor without adequate protection for their invention. I’ve seen so many patents that are written like this — as if the engineer were describing in needless detail an object placed in front of him rather than contemplating the invention as a whole with its many embodiments.
WHY ENGINEERS ARE USEFUL IN DRAFTING PATENTS, AND WHY THEY ARE NOT
It is my understanding that the problem which causes these errors is the way some law firms value engineers for their advanced degrees rather than hiring them for their patent-drafting skills. The norm in patent law firm practice has become that the patent attorney you try to get on the phone at the law firm is an engineer who once heard that they can make a lot of money doing patents, and so they either took the USPTO patent registration exam, or they decided to go to law school. Upon graduation, they got swept into a patent law firm based solely upon the fact that they have a law degree and an advanced science or engineering degree which looks good on paper; the law firm overlooks the fact that the engineer or scientist does not have any idea how to properly write a claim. Unfortunately for you, at your expense the law firm patiently waits for their new engineer-patent attorney protégé to learn as he acquires his claim drafting skills on your patent application.
WHY SO MANY ISSUED PATENTS ARRIVE DEAD ON ARRIVAL
The concerning part is that these engineers [unskilled at writing patent claims] often mistakenly include limitations in their patent claims that simply make the patent worthless or “DOI” (dead on issuance). The reason for this is that the claims in the patent application are written with such specificity that it becomes too easy (and often even inviting!) to manufacture the same product as is described in the invention, but without one of the specific limitations that were needlessly added into the claimset and which should probably have been simply left out. Over the years, I have found and continue to find these worthless additions far too often when analyzing patent claims for value, and I see them as bugs or leeches that detract from the value of the patent once it issued.
A TRAGIC EXAMPLE OF POOR PATENT DRAFTING
It is too funny and often tragic when a patent claims, for example, “an airplane engine having three propeller blades attached thereto,” (claiming three propeller blades) when the plane will fly just as well with only two propeller blades. Imagine the tears of the inventor and the lost profits of his company after spending his life savings to acquire the patent of his dreams when manufacturers started building airplanes with ONLY TWO PROPELLER BLADES and making millions and millions of dollars and EVEN THOUGH the inventor’s invention and idea was for that exact airplane manufactured with full knowledge of his patent, his three-bladed propeller patent will gather dust on his bookshelf until the patent is abandoned because the inventor could no longer pay the maintenance fees on the dusty patent, or the life of the patent runs out with manufacturers smartly knowing never to make an airplane with three propellers… UNTIL THE DAY AFTER the patent expires. ONLY THEN do airplanes having propeller with three blades become the standard and the norm in the field.
WHY YOU SHOULD FEEL SECURE WITH CASHMAN IP
The Cashman Law Firm, PLLC is a solo attorney patent practice with a peer-to-peer approach to serving you, our client. We are growing a network of patent attorneys budding from Cashman IP™ into other firms who work together under the Cashman IP™ name, giving you unparalleled service. Our attorney is trained as a patent litigator rather than an engineer [who likely happened to become a patent attorney once their engineering plan didn’t pan out]. Our patent attorney begins protecting your invention and your ideas as soon as we begin drafting your patent. At all stages of prosecution, a patent attorney with knowledge of patent litigation will review your patent to make sure you feel secure and comfortable with Cashman IP™ that your provisional patent draft, your patent application, and every response and every amendment in response to a USPTO Office Action will be looked at with the eyes of both a licensed patent attorney and with the eyes of a patent litigator.
To find us online, either search for “CashmanIP.com,” or search for “Patent Attorney Houston TX.”
Next Step: Schedule a Consultation
Follow the three steps below to begin working with a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC patent attorney:
1. Schedule a phone appointment to speak to a patent attorney about your matter.
2. Get, sign, and return retainer agreement.
3. Sit back, relax, and let us work on your behalf to get you the results you need.
After scheduling your appointment online, you will be contacted by phone at the specified date and time by a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC attorney.
To find our site, search for: “Patent Attorney Houston TX.”
THE CASHMAN IP PEER-TO-PEER™ AND ARSENAL ON DEMAND™ PATENT LITIGATION STRATEGY
And, with our next generation Peer-To-Peer litigation™ model and our Arsenal On Demand™, you can feel secure that with Cashman IP™, when companies step forward and decide to infringe your patent (and eventually, they usually will, regardless of whether intentionally or incidentally, by carelessly not checking the prior art to see whether a particular invention provides patent rights to its inventors), our growing arsenal of patent litigation attorneys and law firms in our network will be ready, able, and willing to step up and meet the company’s lawyers face-to-face to handle every motion, every discovery request, and to respond to every litigation trick and maneuver which are commonly thrown at a small patent litigation firm with the intent of flooding the attorneys with so much work that they are crippled and unable to properly defend you and your interests. The Cashman Law Firm™ respects and honors the fiduciary duty we owe to our clients and thus we are teaming up with attorneys from other IP Groups and law firms to provide for you an Arsenal On Demand™ to protect your patent from those who infringe it.
WHY WE ARE DIFFERENT FROM THE TRADITIONAL LAW FIRM
We will help you to isolate and distinguish your invention from those patents in the prior art by aggressively checking the prior art records rather than the common patent attorney tactic of throwing the invention against a wall, and “seeing what sticks.”
We will help you to identify what the market value of your patents would be, and we will inform you of your options regardless of whether your intention is to use your patent to make a profit, share your technology with your competitors and license your patent rights to them, or whether you wish to have us find those companies who have infringed your patent and sue if necessary to protect your rights given to you by your patent.
We will help you find correctable errors in your patent claims that would normally cause your patent to lose its value and make it unenforceable should you ever wish to license or sue future infringers to protect your rights. We offer this service so that you will be able to fix your patent within the time allotted by the US Patent & Trademark Office before your patent becomes merely a trophy rather than a force to be reckoned with in your market.
We hope our services will give you the lasting confidence that we will look to protect your invention from the moment we file the application on your behalf through infringement actions, enforcement and licensing, all the way to expiration. Click the “booknow” button below to schedule an appointment with a Cashman IP™ patent attorney or to order services online.
To find us, search for “Patent Attorney Houston TX.”
HOW TO HIRE ROB CASHMAN AS YOUR PATENT ATTORNEY
Next Step: Schedule a Consultation
Follow the three steps below to begin working with a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC patent attorney:
1. Schedule a phone appointment to speak to a patent attorney about your matter.
2. Get, sign, and return retainer agreement.
3. Sit back, relax, and let us work on your behalf to get you the results you need.
After scheduling your appointment online, you will be contacted by phone at the specified date and time by a Cashman Law Firm, PLLC attorney.
To find our site, search for: “Patent Attorney Houston TX.”
To find us again, search for “Patent Attorney Houston TX” in your website browser.
Keyword Search: “Patent Attorney Houston TX”
FILL OUR CONTACT FORM:
NOTE: No attorney client relationship is established by sending this form, and while the attorney-client privilege (which keeps everything that you share confidential and private) attaches immediately when you contact me, I do not become your attorney until we sign a contract together.
10101 Fondren Rd. • Suite 452 • Houston, TX 77096
Tel: 713-364-3476 • Fax: 281-764-8744
Email: info@cashmanlawfirm.com
Keyword Search: “Patent Attorney Houston TX”